Disaster at Bari

The front lay 150 miles to the north, and Bari on the Adriatic felt at peace. It gossiped, haggled, argued. The rich profiteered, the poor scrounged miserably for black-market food. The young strolled down the streets singing, as they had done for centuries before Fascismo's advent.

On the evening of Dec. 2, some 30 German planes came low over the town, dropped their first bombs short among the white stucco buildings. Wide-eyed, white-faced men and women clawed at the ruins, and in the town's few shelters fearful crowds wailed: "Madonna, Madonna mia."

But Bari itself was an incidental target. The bombers which had somehow slipped through the screen of overwhelming Allied air superiority headed for the harbor, studded with ships of a newly arrived convoy. Two ammunition vessels blew up, setting their neighbors ablaze. From other bombed ships thick, pitch-black smoke began to wallow towards the blue sky. Here and there ack-ack guns barked angrily--too late.

In Washington last week, a belated and patently embarrassed tally of the disaster at Bari was finally made (see p. 19). Of the 30-odd ships in the harbor, at least 17 had been sunk--arnonj them five U.S. merchantmen. Some of the supplies had already been landed, but for two or three days the British Eighth Army battling in the north felt the pinch. Casualties totaled 1,000--"including 37 American Naval personnel."

The raid, well-planned and boldly executed, wrote a striking tactical lesson: superiority in the air cannot prevent isolated, successful enemy assaults. For Allied peoples, already overconfident of continued victories, it was a lesson to remember.

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